Skipmac's boat moved

[skipmac]

Originally Posted by DumnMad

Thanks for the report Skip.
100 knot gusts.
What size/weight mooring block and what scope did you have?

The marina claimed they are really larger concrete blocks, 1-2000 lbs (which sounds pretty small to me) but a friend just sent me a link to a you tube video showing some of the moorings being place and they didn't look much bigger than my anchor. If that's all that's down there I'm surprised anyone was left in the mooring field.

Scope was a question. If I let out too much line to the mooring the boat would sail more, get more sideways and of course feel a lot more of the wind force. Too little and I was concerned about lifting the mooring block. In the end I put out about 25' of line, don't know how long the mooring chain was but from the angle I think I had a 6 or 7 to 1 scope.

[skipmac]

Originally Posted by jongleur

little deck house/cover/garage type thingy the companionway slide, slides under?

Turtle?

A friend today told me he called it a turtle but that name just didn't ring a bell, but so far that's two votes for turtle.

[skipmac]

Originally Posted by Fiveslide

I've always heard it called a doghouse.

Sent from my XT1080 using Cruisers Sailing Forum mobile app

To me a doghouse is a covered helm position or hard cover over a cockpit.

[matthewdamage]

A public thank you to Skipmac for sending along pictures of my boat, which is in the dogpile of boats that hauled their moorings across the mooring field.

Looks a little better than the initial reports I got. Doubtful there is damage below the waterline, but the topsides are undoubtedly all chewed up. Haven't seen the bows yet, but the sterns looked surprisingly ok in the pics I got from Skipmac.

Thanks again for the help. Just gotta get it to a mooring now and get back there to see what's needed to fix it.

[skipmac]

Well, after a day to digest it here's my take on riding out a hurricane.

1. There's only a few things you can do to help yourself in this kind of storm. Most of the time you are just along for the ride. However, being on board I am pretty certain saved my boat. The very last boat in the mooring field to break free was the only one to hit me. He blew down on my bow and hit my sprit and 65 lb Mantus right at his shrouds which then hung up on the anchor. I saw him coming and was on the bow when he hit but there was no way I could have fended him off, not even if I had Arnold Schwartzenberger to help. What I was able to do is unhook his shroud from where it hung on my anchor letting him blow free (with one bounce on my toe rail as he went). If I hadn't been on it immediately I think the shroud would have hooked in tight and the two boats irretrievably locked together and certainly I would have dragged.

2. I felt this way going in and the results of the storm confirm it in giant, capital letters. Trust your own anchor and chain, not some unknown mooring no matter what the marina tells you (well maybe if you know and trust them and their competency really, really well). Even though I made it through on a mooring I think there was an element of luck. Others weren't so lucky. I would have rested much easier if I had been hanging on my own anchor.

In this situation I decided to stay on the mooring for a number of reasons. One, I was out of town and got to the boat after dark Thursday when the winds already picked up leaving me with fewer options. Also I was solo, making a move after dark in strong winds even trickier. Another, there were no really good holes close by with protection from westerly winds I would see as the eye passed to the north. Getting there late was my own fault. I had made plans months ago to spend some time with family and initial forecasts looked like the storm would pass much farther east. So I delayed coming until almost too late. Lessons, don't get complacent and don't wait to take action.

3. Motoring against the wind. At the peak of the storm I cranked the engine and tried motoring powering to take some of the strain off the mooring. I'm not certain it helped or not but it did make me feel like I was going something. Very subjectively it did seem to take some of the strain off the lines but also it seemed like it made the boat sail farther out that then put more strain on the lines. This could have been because it was at the height of the storm and the boat would be sailing that much anyway.

A couple of times I gave it full throttle, wheel hard over, to try to straighten out and point the bow back into the wind. The boat moved forward a good bit when I did this and I felt like I might have been able to motor out against the wind if I broke free. That idea could be total nonsense and I certainly wasn't going to cast off lines to see how it went. I would be very interested in anyone else's thoughts or experience on powering against 80-100 kt winds. Is it possible? One problem, if the mooring had started dragging I would have needed a second hand forward to cast off the lines which I didn't have.

4. Like the real estate joke, the secret is preparation, preparation and preparation. Most of the boats that broke free or dragged had zero preparation. I guess at least 2/3s of the boats there were just left as they had been for weeks or months. Single lines on over half the boats. Almost all still had sails rigged. Several had biminis and one had a large awning. A couple of very large cats dragged early, towing the moorings with them. Their windage was just way, way too much for what was there. Of the eight that survived, most were smaller boats, 30-35' range that put much less strain on the mooring. I only saw two boats over 40' that made it through.

I know my extra lines on the mooring helped. Stripping the sails also had to help reduce the strain but I don't know if that was a lot or a little?

5. I would not have wanted to be on board in a storm much stronger than this, at least not where I was. In a better harbor with my own anchor(s) out maybe. If something worse comes along I think hauling out is the plan.

[DumnMad]

Thanksagain Skip. Well done to escape the carnage.
Firstly I'm sure your good 6:1 scope was a great help, moorings often have short scope so they can pack more into a given area.(Mine is 4 tonnes for 15m boat but only 2:1 scope at high tide.) Secondly motoring would help but becomes rapidly less significant as the wind load rises with square of the wind speed.

[salty_dog_68]

WOW. Just WOW!

[boatman61]

Glad you made it through with minimum damage Skipmac..
Regarding leaks.. Green water sweeping over you is also a great leak detector..

[skipmac]

Originally Posted by boatman61

Glad you made it through with minimum damage Skipmac..
Regarding leaks.. Green water sweeping over you is also a great leak detector..

Thanks. Quite glad this one is over.

Regarding leak detectors, would be quite happy to find a slightly less dramatic way to find leaks.

[sailorboy1]

Originally Posted by skipmac

Thanks. Quite glad this one is over.

Regarding leak detectors, would be quite happy to find a slightly less dramatic way to find leaks.

As long as they weren't below the waterline don't look the horse in the mouth.

[skipmac]

Originally Posted by sailorboy1

As long as they weren't below the waterline don't look the horse in the mouth.

There's always at least one damn optimist around wanting to look at the bright side of things.

[sailorboy1]

You're welcome

[skipmac]

Originally Posted by sailorboy1

You're welcome

Thank you

[JPA Cate]

Glad you made it through with minimal damage.

I completely agree with you about minimizing the canvas, good on organizing your mates to do that for you when you couldn't be there. A worrisome time, for sure.

When we were awaiting the cyclone in Vanuatu, in Pt. Sandwich, we removed the weather cloths and lifesling, and removed both headsails. We deck folded the genoa, but the package it made was too big to get down the companionway or in the sail locker, and we wound up with it in the cockpit. And, we wrapped the boom, as no way to stow the main, either. However, the staysail did easily fit below. The genoa could, if we'd had somewhere ashore to lay it out, could have made a tidy enough package to go below, just deck folding it, we couldn't manage.

However, we sucessfully removed the forward windage, and what happened is that we dance markedly less. All that forward windage, and not very much boat in the water forward, makes this boat dance a whole lot. Or, put differently, without that windage, she is more stable at anchor. So I completely agree that you may have dragged with more fwd windage, and am glad you didn't!

Ann

[skipmac]

Originally Posted by Ann T. Cate

Glad you made it through with minimal damage.

I completely agree with you about minimizing the canvas, good on organizing your mates to do that for you when you couldn't be there. A worrisome time, for sure.

When we were awaiting the cyclone in Vanuatu, in Pt. Sandwich, we removed the weather cloths and lifesling, and removed both headsails. We deck folded the genoa, but the package it made was too big to get down the companionway or in the sail locker, and we wound up with it in the cockpit. And, we wrapped the boom, as no way to stow the main, either. However, the staysail did easily fit below. The genoa could, if we'd had somewhere ashore to lay it out, could have made a tidy enough package to go below, just deck folding it, we couldn't manage.

However, we sucessfully removed the forward windage, and what happened is that we dance markedly less. All that forward windage, and not very much boat in the water forward, makes this boat dance a whole lot. Or, put differently, without that windage, she is more stable at anchor. So I completely agree that you may have dragged with more fwd windage, and am glad you didn't!

Ann

Thanks Ann,

Went back to the boat today and put the sails back up. They were soaked in the rains that preceded the storm so it was really good to get them out of the boat before I created a mold factory.

My buddies got the 135 Genoa in the forepeak but it took both of them kicking and screaming to get it in. Main folded up fit on the stbd settee just fine.

I have anchored in some pretty gusty winds once or twice with this boat and running the snubber over the bow roller it was rock steady into the wind. Not the case with the hurricane. Even with the decks stripped I sailed about way more than I expected.